THE CHIROPRACTIC PROFESSION
KEY FACTS + FIGURES
Chiropractic is a health care profession that focuses on disorders of the musculoskeletal system and the nervous system,
and the effects of these disorders on general health. These disorders include, but are not limited to: back pain, neck pain,
pain in the joints of the arms or legs, and headaches. Doctors of Chiropractic (DCs) practice a conservative approach to health
care that includes patient examination, diagnosis and treatment. DCs have broad diagnostic skills and are also trained to
recommend therapeutic and rehabilitative exercises, as well as to provide nutritional, dietary and lifestyle counseling.
77,000
There are
Doctors of Chiropractic (DCs) in the United States
who are required to pass a series of four national board exams1 and be
state licensed.2 Roughly another
DCs work in academic and
management roles.
3,000
10,000
18
There are approximately
chiropractic students in
nationally accredited, chiropractic doctoral graduate education programs4
across the United States with
Doctors of Chiropractic entering
5
the workforce every year.
3
2,500
40,000
An estimated
chiropractic assistants (CAs) are in clinical
and business management roles for chiropractic practices across the
United States.
6
7
Patient Satisfaction/
Clinical Effectiveness
• Chiropractic outperformed all
other back pain treatments, including
prescription medication, deep-tissue
massage, yoga, pilates, and over-thecounter medication therapies.13
• Doctors of Chiropractic are the
highest rated healthcare practitioners
for low-back pain treatments above
physical therapists (PTs), specialist
physicians/MDs (i.e., neurosurgeons,
It is estimated that Doctors of Chiropractic (DCs) treat over
27 million Americans (adults and children) annually.
neurologists, orthopaedic surgeons),
Doctors of Chiropractic are educated in nationally accredited, four-year
doctoral graduate school programs9 through a curriculum that includes
a minimum of
hours of classroom, laboratory and clinical
10
internship, with the average DC program equivalent in classroom hours
to allopathic (MD) and osteopathic (DO) medical schools.11
family or internal medicine).14
8
4,200
physician-level
Doctors of Chiropractic are designated as
in the vast majority of states and the federal Medicare
program. Essential services provided by DCs are also available in federal
health delivery systems, including those administered by Medicaid, the
U.S. Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense, Federal Employees
Health Benefits Program, Federal Workers’ Compensation, and all state
workers’ compensation programs.12
providers
and primary care physicians/MDs (i.e.,
• With prescription pain drug abuse
now classified as an epidemic15 in
the United States and the number of
spinal fusions soaring 500% over the
last decade,16 the essential services
provided by Doctors of Chiropractic
represent a primary care approach
for the prevention, diagnosis and
conservative management of back
pain and spinal disorders that can
often enable patients to reduce or
avoid the need for these riskier
treatments.
www.acatoday.org/patients
>
Patient Satisfaction/Clinical Effectiveness (cont’d)
REFERENCES
• The Doctor of Chiropractic’s
(DC) collaborative, whole personcentered approach reflects the
changing realities of health
care delivery, and fits well into
Accountable Care Organization
(ACO) and patient-centered medical
home (PCMH) models bringing
greater clinical efficiency, patient
satisfaction and cost savings.17
• A systematic review in 2010
found that most studies suggest
spinal manipulation achieves equal
or superior improvement in pain
and function when compared with
other commonly used interventions
for short, intermediate, and longterm follow-up.18
• The American College of
Physicians and the American Pain
Society jointly recommended in
2007 that clinicians consider spinal
manipulation for patients who do
not improve with self-care options.19
www.acatoday.org/patients
1 National Board of Chiropractic Examiners (NBCE)
www.NBCE.org. Accessed December 2013.
2 Federation of Chiropractic Licensing Boards (FCLB)
www.FCLB.org Accessed December 2013.
3 Association of Chiropractic Colleges, www.acc.org.
Accessed December 2013.
4 Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE) www.cce-usa.org is the agency certified by the
U.S. Department of Education to accredit doctoral
graduate school programs who offer Doctor of
Chiropractic (D.C.) degree; Accessed December
2013.
5 Association of Chiropractic Colleges, www.acc.org.
Accessed December 2013.
6 American Chiropractic Association (ACA) www.
ACAtoday.org and Federation of Chiropractic
Licensing Boards (FCLB) www.FCLB.org 2013.
7 C
ertified Chiropractic Clinical Assistant (CCCA)
program. Federation of Chiropractic Licensing
Boards (FCLB), 2013.
8 Barnes, Bloom, Nahin. CDC National Health
Statistics Report #12. Complementary and
Alternative Medicine Use among Adults and
Children: United States, 2007. December 10, 2008.
Extrapolated to 2013 U.S. population from 2007
National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) finding
that 8 percent of the adults and 3 percent of the
children in the United States received chiropractic
services annually.
9 Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE) www.cce-usa.org 2013.
10 Meeker, DC, MPH; Scott Haldeman, DC, PhD,
MD; Chiropractic: A Profession at the Crossroads
of Mainstream and Alternative Medicine. 2002;
136(3): 216-227. http://annals.org/article.
aspx?articleid=474085
11 Coulter, Adams, Coggan, Wilkes, Gonyea. A
Comparative Study of Chiropractic and Medical
Education. Alternative Therapy Health Medicine.
1998; 4:64-75.
12 American Chiropractic Association (ACA), 2013.
www.acatoday.org/pdf/physicianstatus.pdf
13 Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center. Back-Pain Treatments. ConsumerReports.org;
July 2011.
14 Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center.
Relief for your aching back: What worked for our
readers. ConsumerReports.org; March 2013.
15 U
nintentional Drug Poisoning in the United States.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010. Prescription Drug Abuse. White House Office on
National Drug Policy. Accessed November 2013.
16 Whoriskey, Keating. Boom in spinal fusions
questioned. Washington Post. Page 1. October
28, 2013; Rise in spinal fusion surgeries driven
partly by financial incentives. Washington Post.
November 13, 2013.
17 A
ccountable Care Organizations Optimize
Outcomes, Cost Savings and Patient Satisfaction
with Chiropractic Care. Foundation for
Chiropractic Progress. May 2013.
18 Dagenais S, Gay RE, Tricco AC, Freeman MD,
Mayer JM (2010). NASS Contemporary Concepts
in Spine Care: Spinal manipulation therapy for
acute low back pain. The Spine Journal 10 (10):
918–940.
19 Chou R, Qaseem A, Snow V et al.
Recommendation 7. Diagnosis and treatment of
low back pain: a joint clinical practice guideline
from the American College of Physicians and
the American Pain Society. Annals of Internal
Medicine 147 (7): 478–91.